Introducing reliability and load balancing in Mobile IPv6 based networks

With the recent advances in portable devices and wireless networks, a new paradigm of computing has emerged which is known as mobile computing. In general mobile computing can be seen as an integration of portable devices and networks that support mobility, providing anytime, anywhere communication. IP mobility allows seamless mobility between different access networks and technologies. Mobile IPv6 is an enabling platform for supporting IP mobility in the evolution path towards next generation service offerings. However, Mobile IPv6 does not provide reliability and load balancing support in the network.; In this thesis, we introduce "Virtual Home Agent Reliability Protocol". It is an extension to Mobile IPv6 that introduces reliability and load balancing in the Mobile IPv6 based networks. It also provides solutions to the problems caused due to Home Agent failures and overloading in Mobile IPv6. These problems are: delayed failure detection, service interruption in the upper layer applications, increased workload on the Mobile Node, message overhead over the air interface, and IPsec Security Associations re-establishment.; We also introduce "Virtual Home Link" as the extension to Virtual Home Agent Reliability Protocol. It deals with the Home Link failures in Mobile IPv6. It provides failure detection, failure recovery and dynamic load balancing mechanisms for Home Links. Finally, we introduce "Virtual Home Network" which deals with the Home Network failures. It is the extension of Virtual Home Agent Link. It provides failure detection and recovery mechanisms for Home Networks.; We use OPNET to simulate our solution, Mobile IPv6 and other related solutions. We conducted several experiments to assess the performance of our solution. The results show that our solution provides transparent Home Agent and Home Link failure detection and recovery mechanisms. As a result, there is a significant reduction in message exchange over the air interface. Also, our solution provides high service availability in the upper layer applications. Moreover, there is reduced workload on the Mobile Node. Finally, the load balancing mechanism of our solution provides efficient, dynamic and transparent load balancing among multiple Home Agents and multiple Home Links. Thus our solution improves the overall Mobile IPv6 and upper layer applications performance.; Besides simulations, we also performed model checking for our solution. We developed system model using UPPAAL and verified several properties related to the failure detection, recovery and load balancing mechanisms. Thus, the model checking of our solution adds value to the credibility of our solution.